Page 30 of The Peculiar Incident at Thistlewick House

The rain that night was torrential, keeping Edward awake for hours.

When he finally stirred, he realised Mother Nature had also decided to throw freezing fog into the mix.

The plummeting temperatures had condensed the saturated ground and moist air, so that the day started with a thick cloud of white draped over Thistlewick Tye.

As he drew back the curtains, he could see the intricate fern-like patterns of frost inside the panes of his bedroom window, icing-sugar feathers adorning the edges of the beech tree not ten yards from where he stood, and puddles of glass reflecting light back at him from the ground outside.

Everything beyond that had blurred into grey.

He sighed, and pulled his dressing gown tighter, before embarking on his close shave and touching up the dye on his eyebrows.

He had no reason to remain now the scandal had broken.

The transfer of the house could be sorted from London, and the five hundred pounds Barnabas had given him upon his arrival had cleared, so he could easily rent somewhere short-term to avoid his previous clients harassing him…

But, as he’d indicated to Lord Felthorpe, things had changed, and the most important of these changes was that there were now two people in Thistlewick Tye whom he cared about.

He didn’t like seeing his cousin so miserable and he was fighting building feelings for Maude.

They made no sense but they were there, smouldering beneath his skin, nonetheless.

Added to this, and despite spending his life playing others for fools, he knew someone in the village was jerking at his strings.

There was a puppet master out there, manipulating him, and Edward was determined to flush them out.

‘I don’t think old Dr Appleby will last much longer,’ his cousin said, as Edward sat down later to a luncheon of bread and soup.

‘He’s contracted this damn influenza that’s doing the rounds and may even have passed in the night.

Mrs Drayton said his son has engaged Miss Cleyford to nurse him so he can continue with his practice, but his father has been approaching the shadow of the grave for a good many months.

One nasty illness was always going to see him off… ’

At first, Edward let his cousin’s meaningless chatter wash over him, pleased that they’d reached an understanding, but as Mrs Drayton placed a steaming bowl of beef broth in front of him, he suddenly realised the implications of Barnabas’s words.

If there was likely to be another death in Thistlewick Tye, then it was possible a further possession would follow.

And then he considered the weather of the previous night – driving rain.

He suspected no one had jumped into Silas’s body because no new bones had fallen from the cliffs, but such horrendous weather could easily have dislodged more soil overnight.

He wasn’t even sure how it worked. Did the entire body have to be exposed for the soul to be free?

Or just the skull? And how could he ever establish this, when everything fell in such a jumble that he couldn’t possibly know which bone belonged to which body?

Regardless, he needed to get over to the doctor’s house and check that another spirit was not about to cause mayhem.

He pushed back his chair and swept out of the room without trying so much as one spoonful of soup.

‘My hat, coat and cane, please,’ he said to the housekeeper, as she followed him into the hallway.

‘And your luncheon? You’ve not touched a drop. It wouldn’t be wise to head out in this weather, sir,’ she said. She may have cooled towards him but she still knew her duty. ‘Whatever’s got you all of a tither can surely wait?’

‘It’s imperative I call on old Dr Appleby before he passes away. I need his help.’

He very much doubted the muddled elderly man would remember anything of the circus, but it wasn’t the doctor he wanted to see.

He was anxious to confront whoever found themselves in the body of a recently deceased septuagenarian and prevent any violent reactions.

Miss Cleyford had struck him as a nice woman, alerting him to the circus visit and the contents of Jacob’s barn, and he didn’t want her to be attacked by a vengeful spirit.

He wrapped a thick woollen muffler around his neck and started to stride down Copperpenny Lane, noticing that the fog was lying in patches. When he reached the common, where the ground was higher, it had cleared out slightly, although the view ahead was still beclouded.

There was a shout to his left and he heard Jacob call for Banjo, quickly spotting the mischievous hound running about madly in a circle, with a small stick in his mouth. As soon as he realised there was someone new to play with, he bounded over and dropped his prize at Edward’s feet.

‘Damn dog got out again,’ Jacob said, wheezing as he approached. Banjo yapped at the pair of them. ‘He wants you to play with him, and clearly doesn’t mind that you’re a wrong ’un, claiming to be a spiritualist when you’re nothing of the sort…’

The dog looked up at Edward expectantly, mouth open and tail wagging, so he tossed the stick a few yards. Banjo promptly retrieved it but dropped it at the feet of his master this time, as Jacob bent to pat his head.

‘Reckon this fog is only going to get worse. I’d head back to Thistlewick House, if I were you. And then consider packing a bag. This village doesn’t condone liars.’

‘I don’t care what you think of me, but I do care that, whatever I might have believed about the existence of spirits when I first arrived in Thistlewick Tye, villagers are being possessed.

I may have peddled a trade in contacting the dead when I have no such gift, but I can assure you these displaced souls are real and they’re killing innocent people. ’

‘Rubbish.’ He threw the stick for Banjo again.

‘You may not be aware that when Mrs Shaw was ill, she asked for a woman called Zella. Or that Noah, before he ran off, claimed he was Samson Ballard, a circus owner from several decades ago. I now have every reason to believe these are names from a troupe that disappeared in the winter of 1855. And, as their bones fall from the cliffs – bones you failed to report to the constable, may I add – the dead are rising. You do realise that when the old doctor passes away there is every possibility that he’ll be possessed too? ’

‘Poppycock and nonsense.’ But Jacob’s face had turned as pale as the fog surrounding him. ‘I’d leave well alone, if I were you, Blackmore.’ Edward couldn’t be certain if his words were a warning or a threat.

‘You were living in Thistlewick at the time the circus came to town, right?’ he asked. The man must be about sixty.

Jacob blinked. ‘I was just a lad. About seventeen. Working for the previous Lord Felthorpe back then.’ He put his hands up in a defensive manner. ‘I didn’t see anything.’

‘I didn’t ask if you did.’ Edward narrowed his eyes. ‘But you’d certainly have been aware of Samson’s circus if it pitched up in such a small village as this.’

‘Maybe, but I had nothing to do with them. And then they left.’

The fog suddenly descended and swirled about them so that Edward had to step closer to the man to see him clearly. He felt in that moment as though they were two actors on a stage, blinded by the lighting and unable to see the audience below. It was an eerie sensation.

‘But they didn’t leave!’ He was getting agitated now because Jacob was hiding things.

‘At least, not all of them. Their bodies are buried up on the clifftop, near the woods. Years of vegetation have covered the grave and it looks no different to any other part of the common now, but there must have been a time when that land was freshly dug over. A pile of disturbed soil that I can’t believe no one in the village noticed. ’

‘They were bad people…’ Jacob finally managed to reply.

‘I don’t doubt it. And I completely understand that the villagers were frightened of them then, and have every reason to be frightened of them now, but someone needs to start talking because evil things are afoot and I want to prevent anyone else being murdered.’

Jacob didn’t question why Edward had nominated himself as the person to investigate.

‘But what I really don’t understand, Mr Palmer,’ he said, resorting to a more formal manner of address, ‘is that even if this troupe came to Thistlewick and committed the most heinous deeds, why did so many of them end up dead? There are bones still suspended in that cliff that suggest there are several more bodies up there, and yet, if it had been something like an outbreak of illness or some of the troupe had turned on their own, then surely the good, honest people of Thistlewick would have been upfront about this from the start. Instead, I’ve been fed lies about them all leaving, when they clearly didn’t.

’ It was time to play his trump card. ‘Which then begs the question, why do you have a barn full of their circus equipment, including banners advertising Samson’s Circus of Astonishing Spectacles? ’

Jacob looked rattled and started to shake his head. ‘You’ve no business nosing about in places that don’t belong to you, but since you ask, they sold their stuff before they set sail.’

‘Really? And a young lad of seventeen, with no money, bought himself some souvenirs?’

Jacob’s brow wrinkled in confusion. He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Edward’s enquiries.

‘It was already in the barn when I was given the Sailmaker’s.’

‘Given?’

Banjo had now picked up on the animosity between the two men and began to bark.

‘I don’t have to explain myself to you. Believe what you want. They were a bad lot – a very bad lot, and then they went. I’ve got no more to say. You’re in no place to be asking questions. The newspapers said you’re a liar. I strongly suggest that you leave this village before someone makes you.’

And with that, he launched Banjo’s stick as far as he could, roughly in the direction of the pub, and strode off into the dense fog.

There was a beat of a minute or two. Suddenly Edward wasn’t sure which direction he was facing, plus he had the unnerving feeling he was being watched.

He spun about but there was no one there.

Perhaps he was being haunted by ghosts – which would be ironic.

Just because he couldn’t sense them didn’t mean they weren’t nearby.

But then, with the rapidly deteriorating weather, he couldn’t see what was a murky cloud of low-lying ice crystals and what might be a spectral visitant.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to get his bearings, but he set off in what he hoped was the direction of Dr Appleby’s, seeing a few dim blobs of golden light ahead.

The doctor’s house was on one of the small streets that edged the woods, near the schoolrooms and the church, so the hazy row of thick trunks on his right-hand side was a good sign.

Out of nowhere, there was a frightening crack and, almost simultaneously, he felt a sharp pain on the side of his head. He put his hand up to his ear and then looked at his glove to see a smear of crimson.

Had he just been shot at?

‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘Mind what you’re doing!

You nearly got me.’ What the hell was someone thinking, hunting in conditions like this?

There was barely a beat and then a second bullet whizzed past his head and he realised the gravity of his situation.

The shots were no accident and he began to run towards the woods, and away from the direction of the gunfire, hoping the trees would offer some protection.

It was alarming how thick the fog had suddenly become.

One minute, it was patchy, with clear areas, and the next, he could barely see five yards ahead.

Suddenly, the woods were a blur of swirling pale grey, and all he could make out were the spiky black skeletons of the trees in his immediate proximity.

It was as if someone had taken a giant paintbrush to the view ahead and coated the scene in whitewash.

He squinted, his eyesight poor without the added complication of the blasted weather.

His panicked breaths condensed before him and he felt as though he was in a dream, surrounded by misty nothingness.

He stumbled on, losing his footing on a couple of occasions, and wondered if whoever had sent the contaminated gift basket was here to finish the job.

Jacob, he realised, would’ve had enough time to return to the pub and fetch a gun.

He knew damn well that the man had a pair of rifles mounted above the fireplace.

A third shot was fired, and there was an alarming crack as a small section of the oak tree ahead splintered.

He spun madly about looking for the perpetrator and trying to work out the direction of the shots, but he was completely disorientated.

He ducked down to make his body smaller, now certain he was the thing being hunted, as panic flooded through his veins.

With a thumping heart and a throbbing ear, he half ran, half crawled in a straight line, to cover as much ground as possible, hoping against hope that he was heading away from the shooter, and not towards either him or the edge of those lethal cliffs.

His raspy, anguished breaths in the bitterly cold air stung his lungs but he raced on, over the rough ground, as frozen puddles shattered and cracked beneath his scurrying feet.

Creeping brambles tore at his coat and the scarlet dots of bright red hips and haws, the only flash of colour in this milky landscape, whizzed past his eyes.

Eventually, he emerged from the trees, not sure where he was, but noticed a silver ribbon of frozen water in the ditch running alongside him.

He was on some sort of track, so followed it until he saw the outline of a low house emerging from the fog.

It was Maude’s cottage.

Fumbling with the gate, he yelled her name and was relieved when the low door swung open.

‘Mr Blackmore? What on earth…? Oh my stars, your head is bleeding!’

‘Help me?’ he begged, as she stepped back to allow him entry. ‘I’ve been shot.’